French Anti-Semitic Comedian Dieudonné Embroiled in Potentially Fatal Political Row

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Dieudonné with the French fascist Alain Soral; their new political party is under attack by former allies of the anti-Semitic comedian. Photo: Twitter

Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, the anti-Semitic French provocateur who describes himself as a comedian, has found himself on the receiving end of severe criticism from former supporters who resent his ties to Alain Soral, a white French fascist with whom he founded a new political party, Réconciliation Nationale, last month.

“Several black supporters of Dieudonné, including former bodyguards, have turned against him, complaining of his increasingly close connections with white, allegedly racist, groups in France and what they claim is his supposed obsession with personal enrichment,” London’s Independent newspaper reported.

At the heart of the row is a sordid email exchange between Soral – whose latest book, Understanding Empire, recycles the myth of global Jewish control – and a Guinean model named Binti Bangoura.

While Bangoura was under the impression that their correspondence was based on her interest in Soral’s political ideas, he was more concerned with pursuing a sexual relationship, and sent her a naked image of himself which has since been widely posted online, provoking a good deal of amusement. According to the Independent, Soral published a book on the “sociology” of pick-up techniques and has claimed 700 female conquests.

When Bangoura rejected Soral’s advances, he sent her a series of obscene emails. In one, he told her that “whites think black women are whores, which most of them are.” Another email declared, “your fate will be to be a whore for Jews.” Bangoura has now begun legal proceedings against Soral for racial abuse.

The campaign against Dieudonné is being led by one of his former bodyguards, Jérémie Maradas-Nado, alias Jo Dalton, a former leader of the Black Dragons, a gang which defended black people from attacks by white skinheads in the 1990s. Commenting on the political relationship between Dieudonné and Soral, Dalton said: “At first I told myself that these guys were breaking new ground – that they were courageous. Then I saw more and more people with shaven heads and swastikas. By allying himself with fascists, Dieudonné has betrayed the black cause.”

For his part, Dieudonné has responded by accusing Dalton of “extortion” and of being a “Zionist stooge.” As a recent article in Le Monde observed, for Dieudonné and his cohorts, the word “Zionism” amounts to the “ultimate insult.”

Michel Gurfinkiel, a French political analyst who has published widely on the subject of anti-Semitism in France, told The Algemeiner that the split in Dieudonné’s camp reflected a contest over power rather than political principles. “There is no ‘ideological’ split whatsoever, and certainly not when it comes to Israel and the Jews,” Gurfinkiel said.

As an example, Gurfinkiel cited the case of Marc-Edouard Nabé, a French writer of Lebanese origin who has distanced himself from Dieudonné and Soral. “For all that, Nabé still very much indulges in provocation for provocation’s sake, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism,” he said.

Gurfinkiel argued that the alliance between Dieudonné and Soral poses a greater challenge to the French far left than to the extreme right-wing National Front party led by Marine Le Pen. “On the one hand, Marine Le Pen never liked them, and saw them as counterproductive in her own strategy to get accepted as a mainstream political leader. On the other hand, Soral has his own ambitions and plans to be the ultimate French Führer,” he said.

Contrastingly, the far left, Gurfinkiel said, is now in the awkward situation of watching its “supporters deserting en masse for Dieudonné’s ‘funny shows.'” Far left groups are now campaigning against Soral by labeling him a “fascist.”

While Dieudonné is famous for his political stunts – among them the “quenelle,” an inverted Nazi salute proffered by his supporters and admirers like Nicolas Anelka, a French soccer player who received a five match ban when he made the gesture during a match in England – his forays into electoral politics have been much less successful. In 2009, his “Anti-Zionist List,” formed to “free our state, government and institutions from the hands of Zionists,” scored just 1.3 percent of the vote in elections to the European parliament.